Linux is struggling on the desktop because it only has a small number of "great" apps, according to the Gnome co-creator. Miguel de Icaza, co-creator of the Gnome desktop, told tech journalist Tim Anderson at the recent Windows 8 Build conference "When you count how many great desktop apps there are on Linux, you can probably name 10," de Icaza said, according to a post on Anderson's IT Writing blog. "You work really hard, you can probably name 20. We've managed to p*** off developers every step of the way, breaking APIs all the time."

I may remember my history wrong but it seemd that the issue had more to do with the GL owning company driving away the game developers who did indeed care in the beginning. The owning company cared about GL but also about controlling it. The game developers cared about it but where driven off and eventually had DX instead. The third party developers cared also but couldn't do anything due to the GL license at the time. When OpenGL became available, DX was already established with game developers and through MS distribution channels.

Sadly, OpenGL will have to be three times better than DX to get any consideration. The folks that care now have a heck of a challenge.